Countries that embrace legal regulation find themselves in breach of international law. In this video, we explain a strategy to resolve those treaty tensions and to enable progressive and sustainable change at the global level.
For decades, affected communities around the globe have been resisting the modus operandi of transnational corporations (TNCs) in their territories and workplaces and documenting systemic human rights violations and the track record of corporate impunity with their lives and their deaths. Corporate impunity is embedded in and protected by an ‘architecture of impunity’ that legitimises and legalises the operations of TNCs. This architecture has been established through free trade and investment agreements, the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the structural adjustment policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and other financial instruments and the aggressive push for public-private partnerships (PPPs). At the core of this architecture is the infamous investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system, a private arbitration system that allows TNCs to sue states whenever they consider that their future profits are threatened by new measures or policies aiming at improving social and environmental protection. Thus, it neutralises the function of the state, whose primary responsibility is to defend public interest and protect the well-being of its citizens and the planet from corporate interests.
Prof John Ruggie has shared his comments on the Zero Draft treaty on TNCs and human rights on this blog earlier this month. His core concerns are that the zero draft has not adequately deal with ‘scale’ and ‘liability’. This response argues that Ruggie’s arguments in opposition to the binding treaty are misdirected and they fail to recognise the historic opportunity offered by the Human Right Council to create a human rights remedy system for corporate abuse across national boundaries.
The world's investor state dispute settlement (ISDS) system faces the largest crisis in its history. Why is the European Commission rejecting the justified criticism that can be found all over the world?
Dutch political scientist and activist Frans Bieckmann analyzes the roots, the identity and the challenges of Podemos, a new political movement that fights corruption, unemployment and inequality, and provides lessons for new political strategies all over Europe.
The far right is on the rise from North America to Europe to Asia. Each case is different, but they share key similarities — and require similar responses.
The UK's labour party is inspiring grassroots and workers mobilisation and showing increasingly credible leadership. Its recent annual conference and the concurrently run World Transformed Festival give hope.
Social movements need to grapple with not only building successful political parties and winning power but also with using that power strategically to best implement change. This report examines the critical role played by Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) government employees and the challenges they faced in advancing a social and economic justice agenda within Bolivia. How can progressive government employees remain true to their political ideology while ensuring the execution of a professional and fair public bureaucracy?
Yasha Maccanico, Ben Hayes, Samuel Kenny, Frank Barat
02 October 2018
Report
Europe’s “refugee crisis” triggered a wave of solidarity actions by both civil society organisations and ordinary citizens. Their efforts were part of a wave of compassion, as people organised convoys to refugee reception centers, warmly greeted arrivals at train stations and lined highways to provide food and water to those making the journey from Syria and elsewhere. Just a few years later those same activists are treated as criminals and humanitarian search and rescue missions are criminalised.
TNI's War and Pacification Programme - Conference on pacification theory, the "shrinking space" for environmental activists and movements, the policing of extractives and examples of resistance.
Over a century after the original Scramble for Africa, European leaders are today imposing new forms of colonialism on the continent in the shape of militarized border controls.
Growing inequality, the extraction of wealth from our communities and the looming threat of a climate catastrophe illustrate that our current economic model is broken. What it is to be done?
John Walsh, Ann Fordham, Martin Jelsma, Hannah Hetzer
22 September 2018
Article
The "Global Call to Action" document that the U.S. government is circulating—and heavily pressuring reluctant countries to sign—is explicitly “not open for negotiation.” Far from an effort at achieving mutual understanding and genuine consensus, it is an instance of heavy-handed U.S. “with us or against us” diplomacy.
TNI is known for its rigorous standards of research and high levels of expertise and its commitment to produce analysis that can assist our mission of achieving social and environmental justice. Our briefings and reports are appreciated by activists and policy-makers alike for their systemic analysis, visionary alternatives and pragmatic proposals.
Working in partnership is how TNI works. TNI believes that social transformation is only achieved by building partnerships, particularly with social movements actively combatting injustice and constructing alternatives. In a world in which predominant economic policies harm the majority while entrenching the power of a small few, forging collaboration and cooperation and building collective power is the first step to achieving a more just world.
The turbulence that hit global stock markets last February, causing much fright and a paper loss of 4 trillion dollars, is a reminder that the next big implosion may be just around the corner.
The growing call for the feminisation of politics – and energy politics for that matter – is about much more than merely increasing the representation of women in decision-making positions. We need to question the ways energy politics are shaped. We need to ask, energy for whom and energy for what?
